The WILD side! - 100gal build thread (56k Warning)

[decoy50]

Tell me more about your Tropheus plans. They've caught my curiosity too in the past couple weeks & I've been doing alot of research on trophs.com. My favorites are bemba, kasanga red rainbow, ikola & ilangi yellow. I'm not sure if I'm going to pull the trigger & get some or not, I keep thinking I'll get bored with the tank since every fish looks virtually identical.

[Discus-n00b]

Plan is to get a colony of at least 15, probably a few more (though i'll probably start out with many more juvis and weed them out to a good m to f ratio as they grow). Run my 2 Eheim 2217 canisters mainly as biological and possibly add an HOB or 2 for mechanical. Will do weekly WCs and use aragonite substrate to buffer the water a bit. Fairly simple.

I'm leaning towards the Ilangi really, but the red rainbows and Ikola are on my radar as well. Kind of depends on who has what in stock at the time though I would prefer some Ilangi. They do look the same but the amount of energy in the tank is pretty impressive thats what I am looking forward too. Eventually I'd also like to mix in maybe a Juli pair or calvus pair for the bottom/rocks.

[decoy50]

I was leaning towards buying adult wilds already broken into 1M/2F trios. More expensive, but I'm a little tired of growing out juvie fish at the moment. Also, I'm not confident in my venting skills on 2-3in fish. I keep large Central American cichlids and its alot easier to vent a 6+in fish.

One thing I like about Trophs, other than the colors & activity level, is their bold nature. Several youtube videos I saw really got me interested. The fishkeeper kept his hands in the tank over the food wafer & the trophs were swimming between his fingers & going crazy for the food. Total lack of concern for the giant hand in the water...not something I'm used to.

[Discus-n00b]

If I can find a good group of sexed wilds I'd go that route for sure as well. But it seems looking over stocklists that the juvis are pretty common and easy to get a hold of. No problem going either way though.

[rickztahone]

I'll keep an eye out for your other thread to see how the Trophs treat you.

[Crockett]

Never really seen these Tropheus before, don't know why, but I have done some research and they are really interesting, the more pictures and youtubes I see of them, the more I am liking them. I totally understand why you are opting for these, good choice IMO.

Crockett

[winn0923]

You should look into petrochromis, imo way better than trophs in term of personality, even though stock can be hard to find (unless you are close to Houston, TX)

Here is old pic of my yellow moshi, love them and you can actually keep them in a colony or just as an individual w a colony of trophs

[Einarsson]

Funny I stumbled upon your thread and read through it all.

I'm thinking of starting a project with wilds currently and I was thinking the same as you. Keep it simple with dual canister filters to be able to clean them one at a time.

I've had my doubts about canisters forever with the general issue that they suck dirt in and are an incredible pain to clean. This often causes problems with water quality . So I figured you went dual canister so it's probably good, but then you ran into the same issue that I'm afraid of, problems keeping the water clean. Big prefilters aren't very nice to have in the tank either.

So I just want to say that your experience will be incredibly useful for me and it has helped me to lean even more towards learning to properly use a sump, where you can even use filter wool and still have a very easy time keeping it all clean. Plus you get somewhere to put all the technology. Also you can still oxygenate with air stones in the sump reducing the need for circulation in the tank, meaning the discus can have calmer water to live in.

Anyway, this was just a reflection of my own thoughts on the subject. As we all know, clean tank and water is the basis of holding discus, and keeping it that way should be as simple and effective as possible. So I guess sump is the way to go.

Again, thank you for sharing your experience. It's probably going to help me to avoid making the same mistakes you did. :-)

Cheers!